


The Adventures of Office Drone and Paisley Man

by msmorland



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 11:33:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11379357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmorland/pseuds/msmorland
Summary: Arthur’s zoning out at his desk the first time he sees the sign, purple marker on whiteboard in the window of the office building across the street.Arthur’s pretty sure it says, of all things, "How u doin?"





	The Adventures of Office Drone and Paisley Man

**Author's Note:**

> Last year, someone wrote a message on a whiteboard and stuck it in the window of the office across the street from mine. That was as far as the story went IRL, but, of course, it got me thinking about how that seemed like something Eames would do. I wrote this and promptly forgot all about it, only to rediscover it while going through some old files this weekend.

Arthur’s zoning out at his desk the first time he sees the sign, purple marker on whiteboard in the window of the office building across the street.

Arthur’s pretty sure it says, of all things, _How u doin?_

“How long has that been there?” he asks Stacy, who sits next to him. They rarely converse—Arthur mostly thinks of her, and describes her to Ariadne, as The One Who Brings Fish For Lunch—so perhaps that’s why her first response is to look at him like he’s grown an extra head.

“Over there,” he says, pointing across the street at the sign.

Stacy looks. Shrugs. “Never seen it before. Pretty sure it’s for you, though.” She puts her left headphone in again and turns back to her work.

Arthur peers across the street, wondering what made Stacy think that, and sees that now there’s a man standing behind the sign. Arthur can’t see him all that clearly, except to notice that he’s built and wearing a shirt that hurts Arthur’s eyes from all the way across the street. He _looks_ like the sort of person who would write _how u doin?_ on a sign. When he sees Arthur watching, he points down at the words on the sign and smirks. It’s too far away for Arthur to be sure, but he thinks the man might be winking at him.

* * *

“I’m beset by idiots,” he tells Ariadne that night over drinks.

Arthur and Ariadne work for the same company in different departments, and they’d become instant friends a few years before when they’d caught each other rolling their eyes at the same part of the CEO’s end-of-year presentation. Ariadne seems too young for the levels of bitterness and cynicism she projects—Arthur has spent _years_ carefully cultivating the same—but she long ago told Arthur off for worrying about corrupting her.

“Fish for lunch again?” she asks sympathetically.

“Yes,” Arthur admits. “But it’s not just that.”

He explains about the sign in the window across the street. He can’t tell whether he’s more bothered by the poor spelling, the paisley shirt, or just the complete lack of effort demonstrated by the whole thing.

“It’s like the worst of online dating brought to life,” Arthur rants.

Ariadne is laughing at him now, but she doesn’t understand what he’s going through. She’s tiny and cute and has men and women appearing constantly in her life, handing her their phone numbers and taking her out and being _actual decent human beings_. Arthur hasn’t been on a decent date in … well, probably ever, if he really thinks about it. He’s not sure he could even describe what a decent date _is_.

And now even his peaceful zone-out time at work is being disrupted by … this.

Ariadne looks at him with a sly smile on her face.

“Is the guy hot, at least?”

“That’s not the point,” Arthur mutters, but Ariadne sees right through him and _hmm_ s at him across the table.

The guy is, unfortunately, Arthur’s definition of hot.

* * *

The next day, Arthur determinedly avoids looking across the street. He keeps his head down and he works. He hates his job—hates it so much he doesn’t even like thinking about it while he’s doing it—but Arthur can’t let go of his work ethic even when he tries. So he keeps his head down and he works.

The thing is, Arthur knows he took a wrong turn somewhere in his life. Growing up, he never thought he’d be the sort of person who donned a suit and picked up a briefcase and went to an office every day. His father had been that sort of person, and he had seemed crushingly unhappy right up until the heart attack killed him at age 58. Arthur promised himself as a teenager that that life wasn’t for him, but somehow he finds himself living it anyway, going to this soulless office every day and trying so hard to detach himself from the nature of his day-to-day existence that he sometimes thinks he’s going to look up and see his inner self wandering around the office in some kind of astral projection. How is he doing? Even if it hadn’t been an off-putting pickup line, Arthur wouldn’t know how to begin to answer that question.

So it seems easier to just ignore the sign.

Ariadne, of course, has other ideas.

She DMs him at 4 p.m., just as he’s reaching his ultimate do-not-give-a-fuck point for the day.

**Ariadne** : hey, any sign (sorry) of your sign guy?

**Arthur:** ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

**Ariadne:** you haven’t looked?

**Arthur:** nope. i told you, beset by idiots. ignoring it is the best policy.

**Ariadne:** i don’t get you, arthur. you’re always complaining about how no one interesting ever asks you out, and now someone is trying to flirt with you in a way that is actually kind of creative and you’re ignoring it?

Arthur blinks at the screen. Ariadne—his cynical partner in snark and bitterness—actually sounds kind of angry.

**Arthur:** why does this bother you so much?

**Ariadne:** because i want you to be happy, you moron!!

The little icon next to Ariadne’s screenname goes gray, and no matter what Arthur types, she refuses to say anything else.

Before he leaves for the day, Arthur takes a quick peek out the window, eyes scanning the building across the street until he finds the whiteboard.

Today it’s blank, and Arthur’s winking, paisley-wearing mystery man is nowhere to be seen.

Arthur tells himself he’s not disappointed at all.

* * *

Ariadne’s radio silence ends with a DM the next morning.

**Ariadne:** ARTHUR, LOOK ACROSS THE STREET NOW NOW NOW!!!

Her message is accompanied by three siren emojis and a giant red exclamation point.

Arthur sighs but looks, mostly because he doesn’t want Ariadne to stop talking to him again.

What he sees is… Arthur has to do a double-take just to make sure he’s seeing what he thinks he’s seeing.

Instead of one white board across the street, there are now three in a row, and Arthur’s mystery man, dressed in another paisley shirt, is drawing on them, moving so fast he reminds Arthur of a character in a movie montage.

From his hand blooms, well, a work of art, though Arthur’s never before thought of markers on whiteboard as something that could be art. It’s a cartoon starring a man in a suit, carrying a briefcase, moving so fast the air is streaked in his wake. Arthur wonders if he’s vain for thinking it’s supposed to be him until he notices the looks his coworkers are giving him. Even the ones who don’t usually speak to him are peering at him, studying him as if he’s suddenly _fascinating_.

It’s more than a little weird.

**Arthur:** okay, fine, this guy certainly gets points for creativity.

**Ariadne:** i hate to say i told you so, but i told you so.

Arthur sticks his tongue out at his computer screen as he sends her an emoji of the same.

**Arthur:** seriously, though, what happens now? i don’t know who this guy is, i’ve only seen him a couple of times from across the street. maybe I wouldn’t even recognize him if i passed him on the sidewalk.

**Ariadne:** just go with it, arthur! this is what i’m telling you. you can’t know how something is going to turn out when it’s hardly even started yet. Just…try to let yourself see where it goes, okay?

**Arthur:** pearls of wisdom over DM. are you sure you’re not some kind of fortune cookie bot?

**Ariadne:** you know i can tell when you’re trying to distract me, right? Just breathe, arthur. appreciate the hot man who appreciates you.

_Hmm_ , Arthur thinks, sneaking another glance out the window. The man is still drawing, and Arthur can’t help but appreciate the way he moves.

He supposes he could do worse than to take Ariadne’s advice.

* * *

The next morning, Arthur comes in early to get a photo of the drawing—the cartoon starring _him_ , and Arthur still can’t really process _that_ —before everyone else gets into the office. He takes his time, zooming in on each panel, and he’s so focused that he doesn’t notice at first when Paisley Mystery Man appears. He removes the first whiteboard and adds a new one at the end of the line, and Arthur quickly realizes that he’s continuing the sequence. Today, Arthur’s alter ego is doing something mysterious with some wrapped object from his briefcase.

_And there we go_ , Arthur thinks. _My fake cartoon life is officially more interesting than my real life_.

But watching Paisley Mystery Man draw is absorbing, and for a little while Arthur forgets to be bitter.

When PMM—Arthur has now abbreviated it in his head—finishes, he steps back to survey his work.

Arthur doesn’t want to let the man leave without some kind of acknowledgement.

He hurries to the supply room for paper, a marker, and tape, crossing his fingers that no one gets to the office until he’s finished the truly absurd, un-Arthur-like thing he’s about to do.

_A_ , he writes on the first piece of paper.

_R_ , he writes on the second.

_T_

_H_

_U_

_R_

When he’s finished, he tapes them to the inside of the window in the correct order to be read from the other side of the street. Then, when PMM turns around, Arthur waves his arms to attract his attention.

He points to himself, then to the letters he’s taped to the window.

He hasn’t brought over enough paper to write _THANK YOU_ , but he hopes the guy gets what he’s trying to say.

* * *

The package arrives the next day, addressed only to:

_Arthur_

_10 th floor_

Somehow, it finds its way to his desk.

When he opens the envelope, a sheaf of papers slides out, clipped together to preserve the order. The first four pages are familiar—the panels he’s already seen from across the street, though up close they’re a lot more detailed. Arthur sees that PMM has even drawn him with coordinated socks and tie, a bit of fashion indulgence on Arthur’s part that even Ariadne doesn’t usually notice.

He should maybe be creeped out, but Arthur is, honestly, flattered. 

The comic continues on the rest of the pages, and Arthur becomes so absorbed in his cartoon persona’s adventures that he hardly notices as his coworkers come in and fill up the desks around him.

The last page of the packet has a note.

_Arthur,_

_I’m always up for a show, but really, these are for you. (Plus, I’m a temp up there, and yesterday was my last day for now.)_

_Name’s Eames, by the way._

Followed by a phone number.

**Ariadne:** no drawings today :( :( :(

**Arthur:** no, he sent them to me in the mail.

**Ariadne:**?!?!?!

**Arthur:** …with his phone number.

**Ariadne:**!!!!

**Ariadne:** you’re going to call him, right?

**Arthur:** i don’t know, ari.

**Arthur:** yes, I will admit that this has all been…charming, but what if that’s all it is? what if i meet him and it’s smarm and charm all the way down?

**Arthur:** it will ruin a good thing.

**Ariadne:** if you don’t call him, i’m going to come down there and call him for you.

**Ariadne:** or at least text him.

**Ariadne:** seriously, arthur. if you bag on this, i’m never listening to another one of your bad date stories again. i’ll just be over here with my fingers in my ears while you tell your completely unnecessary tales of woe.

**Ariadne:** and yes, i know we’re DMing. the fingers in the ears are _metaphorical_.

**Arthur:** you’re ridiculous.

**Arthur:** but fine. i’ll do it.

Arthur’s still chicken, so he waits until the end of the day and texts instead of calling.

_Hey_ , he writes. _This is Arthur._

He presses send. Looks at what he’s written. Decides Ariadne would probably make some sarcastic jab at his lack of warmth and all his capitalization and punctuation.

_Thank you for the comic. I’ve never seen anything like it._

His phone dings while he’s making dinner—it’s his secret Friday- and Saturday-night indulgence, cooking all the elaborate things he doesn’t have the time or energy to make during the week.

_ur welcome, pet_ , says Eames’s text.

Arthur frowns at it.

His phone dings again.

_what r u up to?_

Arthur wonders if this is a _what are you wearing_ type of conversation, if Eames is trying, in his unpunctuated way, to engage him in sexy banter.

Does Arthur _want_ Eames to engage him in sexy banter, despite Eames’s failures in the areas of spelling and apostrophe usage?

Ariadne, Arthur knows, would tell him to lighten up, to stop second-guessing himself, and so Arthur takes a deep breath, lets it out, and pictures Eames drawing. Not just the way he looked from across the street, his arm sweeping over his whiteboard panels, but the way he must look at home, concentrating over a drawing table, thinking about Arthur.

Okay, Arthur thinks. He does, in fact, want Eames to engage him in sexy banter.

_I’m cooking_ , Arthur types.

He looks at what he’s written. _Hmm_. _Not actually sexy at all._ He backspaces. Types the same thing over again.

He’s utterly hopeless at this.

He gives up and sends the text.

His phone rings.

Arthur jumps. The number is Eames’s. Arthur can’t not pick up, given that he was _just_ texting Eames and it’s obvious he’s by his phone.

“Hey,” Arthur says, trying to sound totally cool and collected, like talented artists send him amazing art of himself all the time and this is just another day in Arthur’s glamorous life.

“So, Arthur,” says the voice on the other end of the phone, and Eames is _British_ , and his voice is wonderfully rich and purring over the line, and maybe Arthur does, suddenly, live a glamorous life. 

“So, Arthur,” says Eames, “What are you cooking?”

“Am I supposed to say something sexy here, or do you actually want to know what I’m cooking?” Arthur asks, before his brain catches up with his mouth.

So much for sounding cool and collected.

Eames laughs.

“The idea of you cooking is inherently sexy, pet.”

Arthur decides he could maybe forget the spelling horrors and the missing apostrophes and the odd endearments if Eames would just keep saying _inherently_ in that accent.

So Arthur tells Eames what he’s cooking, and before Arthur knows it, they’re having a real conversation. Arthur asks Eames about his art, and Eames asks him about learning to cook, and the conversation gets flirtier as it goes on.

“So, Arthur,” Eames says eventually, “maybe we could try occupying the same physical space, instead of just conversing across streets and through the mail.”

“I suppose,” Arthur says, once again trying, and probably failing, to sound like he has it together. “If you insist.”  
  
“I do,” Eames says, and Arthur can somehow hear him smiling over the line. “Are you free tomorrow?”

Arthur is free tomorrow. He’s free most of the time, truthfully, when he’s not working or hanging out with Ariadne. A cooler, more collected Arthur—the Arthur of all his previous terrible dates—might have claimed to be busy just to seem harder to get, but this Arthur likes the idea of hearing Eames’s voice up close. Of maybe thanking Eames personally for the artwork.

This Arthur feels…adventurous. He might not be leading the life he always thought he would; he might wake up on Monday feeling the same frustrating mix of boredom and dread he feels most Mondays. But right now, Eames—who seems to lead a life more like the kind Arthur has always wanted—finds him interesting, and that makes Arthur feel as alive as his mysterious cartoon alter ego.

“I was thinking of cooking again tomorrow, actually,” Arthur says. “Interested?”

“In cooking?” Eames asks. “I’m not much of a chef, love.”

“In watching me cook,” Arthur says.

He’s pretty sure Eames makes some kind of inarticulate sound on the other end of the phone. It’s immensely gratifying.

“Will you wear an apron?” Eames asks, when he’s regained control of himself. “And one of those chef’s hats?”

Arthur laughs. He feels a thrill through his whole body. This, he thinks, is maybe the feeling that was missing from all of those past horrible dates—this delicious sense of anticipation.

“Well, Mr. Eames,” says Arthur. “You’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to find out.”


End file.
